Grand Garden of Dresden

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The capital of Saxony is a big garden landscape. Few large cities are so close to nature or have such extensive gardens, spacious parks and generous lawns for playing and sunbathing. The most impressive park in the Saxon metropolis is the 363-acre Great Garden or Grosser Garten. Elector Johann Georg III started the Dresdeners' favorite park with its absolutely straight avenues in 1678, modeling it on the French parks.

Grand Garden of Dresden

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After a first garden plan in 1676, the rectangular floor plan of the entire complex, still visible today, was first conceived and then carried out by specific purchases of estates until 1693 by Johann Friedrich Karcher. From 1678 to 1683 Elector John George III commissioned Johann Georg Starcke to build one of the earliest and most important examples of German Baroque construction: the Palace in the Grand Garden. Around the Palace, which is situated centrally in the garden’s core area, the following elements were introduced up until 1719: parterre and bosquet constructions, the Palace’s basin and a pheasant garden.

Many of the original approximately 1500 garden sculptures were destroyed or stolen in 1760 and again in 1813 due to wars. After 1814 and the opening of the Great Garden for the public, parts of the garden area were redesigned in Romantic style. From 1873 onwards, under the direction of Johann Carl Friedrich Bouché landmark changes for today’s appearance of the garden were carried out. The Baroque basic structure – significantly defined through six alleys – was kept in order to create a landscaped park.